Research drives WSU Spokane hires

College of Pharmacy touts credentials of four new professors

Washington State University Spokane’s goal for the College of Pharmacy is to bring at least $15 million in research grants and awards by the year 2020.

The credentials of four new professors show that effort is constantly kept in mind.

The university wants people who are “good at moving the practice of pharmacy forward,” said Linda Garrelts MacLean, associate dean for advancement for the College of Pharmacy.

The college has hired Julie Akers, who worked as a pharmacist at the Everett Clinic and served as president of the Washington State Pharmacy Association; and Shannon G. Panther, a pharmacist licensed in 12 states.

“On the other side … we are looking for people strong in research,” including drug delivery, drug discovery and the studies of genetics and genomics, MacLean said.

David X. Liu and Connie Remsberg have been hired to help reach that goal.

Liu comes from Penn State University College of Medicine, where he’s worked since 2006 in the Cancer Institute, the Penn State Neuroscience Institute and the Department of Neural and Behavioral Sciences. Remsberg comes from the University of California, San Francisco, where she did research.

The four vacancies opened over the past two years as the College of Pharmacy moves from Pullman’s campus to Spokane, said Lorraine Nelson, a College of Pharmacy spokeswoman.

Two professors decided to stay in Pullman and two Spokane faculty members left the college, she said.

“We are in the first year of a five-year plan to build up the research plan,” MacLean said. “And we would anticipate hiring about 20 researchers, some of whom are already here.”